


Dosed

by Alethia



Series: Starting to Finish [1]
Category: CSI: Miami
Genre: Accidental Drug Use, Caretaking, Episode Tag, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-03-30
Updated: 2004-03-30
Packaged: 2018-01-11 13:51:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1173835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alethia/pseuds/Alethia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Calleigh and cocaine did not a fun night make.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dosed

**Author's Note:**

> Post-ep for 1.18 "Dispo Day." Because we never got to see what happened after Calleigh tested positive for cocaine. Thanks go to carolinecrane for the beta. Originally posted on LJ [here](http://alethialia.livejournal.com/57298.html#cutid3).

“Hey. Is Calleigh okay?”

“She’ll be fine.” Horatio paused, looking at Eric knowingly before continuing on, “Anything you want to tell me?” Not unkind, that.

Eric half-smiled. Did nothing get by him? It wasn’t even worth trying to deny. “Do I even need to?”

“Well, no…but if you ever _want_ to…”

Eric nodded, accepting that for what it was. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Good. Now, why don’t you take Calleigh home…It would be better if she were with someone she knew.”

Eric nodded, turning to go.

“Eric,” Horatio said. “She needs to get her dopamine levels back to normal. So that means—she needs water, she needs protein, she needs sleep. Now the fun part…the fun part is that she’s not going to want any of those things.”

“Yeah, Calleigh can be a real bear when she decides she doesn’t want to do something. Luckily, I’ve dealt with _that_ a few times.” A ghost of a smile. “I’ll take care of it.”

“Good. You do that.”

***

He found her frantically scribbling away in the break room, totally focused on whatever it was she was doing.

“Hey, Calleigh, whatcha got there?”

“Can’t talk right now. I’m being brilliant.”

Eric raised an eyebrow. That was—really unlike Calleigh. “Oh, yeah? Care to share?”

Calleigh stopped abruptly and looked up at him, narrowing her eyes in consideration, effect somewhat ruined by the rapid blinking. Normally this would inspire fear for his life, but she was high and he figured she wouldn’t do anything too horrible to him in the break room at work.

But then again, she was high and not all there, so…

With a flurry of movement she was up and standing next to him, paper spread out for his perusal. All the quick, jerky movements more than a little unsettling coming from someone normally so smooth, calculating. 

“I’ve been thinking about the stock on the M 24SWS,” she said in a rapid, clipped voice. “I think if I changed this and this,” she said, pointing out various parts on what _looked_ like a gun. Somewhat. “Then I could make it out of aluminum and reduce the weight by at least 3 pounds. Maybe four. No three. Or four.”

He raised a hand. “Yeah, I got it. That’s a really—interesting idea.” Not that he would know. She was the gun girl. Sniper rifles never were his forte. 

“It’s not interesting, it’s brilliant. It’ll revolutionize the sniper rifle, a change as fundamental as the adoption of the C stock on the M 1903A1. I’ll be famous.”

Eric knew he looked ridiculous, staring at her like he didn’t know who had taken over the body of the woman he—liked…but he just couldn’t help it. Calleigh was never this—self-involved. Not to mention she was babbling and he had no idea what the hell she was going on about.

“Yeah, that’s great Calleigh. Um, so how you feeling?”

“Hmm?” she asked, scribbling again, though in what language, Eric couldn’t divine. Hey, as long as she understood it, he wasn’t saying a word.

“How are you feeling?” he asked, enunciating as if to a child. Normally he would have been smacked for that.

“Brilliant.”

“Yeah, I think we covered that.”

“Everything’s so clear. It all makes sense, Eric,” she said, looking up at him again and gesturing violently with her pen. “My mind is so clear, making connections that were never there before. It’s all so fast; I don’t have enough time to get it all out. God, I’m a genius!”

“Yes, yes, you are,” he replied, with a hint of a smile. Calleigh just ignored him, scribbling away, and how was he going to get her to come with him?

“Hey, Calleigh, how about I take you home?”

“No, no. I have to stay. Here. And work on this.”

“But wouldn’t it be better to do it at your apartment?” he tried again.

She stilled suddenly and then with another flurry gathered up all the papers and practically ran out of the building, Eric scrambling to keep up. The picture was ridiculous—Calleigh walk-running out of the building, stacks of crumpled paper in her arms, hair flying back and with a single intent. Eric had to fight to keep the grin off his face. Man, she was going to hate this in the morning. 

Hmm, hopefully she wouldn’t hate him, too.

Probably not considering you couldn’t really blame anyone for the situation. But if he started taking pictures, yeah, that would probably do it. Okay. Not gonna go there.

Still, though. What a hilarious thing to look back on in twenty years.

And she was still babbling. “It would be better with my books. I have books there, you know. Lots of them. They can help. Not that I need help, as I’m brilliant, you know, but if I did need help then those books would help. Yes.”

She paused.

“Where’d I put my car?” she asked, turning in a circle and squinting, blinking rapidly. 

“Ahh, why don’t I drive you?” he asked, dangling his keys and looking earnest.

She looked him up and down and suddenly headed off. In the wrong direction. 

“It’s this way, Calleigh,” he called.

“Of course it is. I knew that. Don’t you know I knew that?” Accusing and there was no way he was getting into an argument with Calleigh when she was high. He couldn’t hold his own on a normal day. With all her attention to things like propriety and, you know, laws she might just pull out her gun and shoot him.

Wait, did she have her gun? They wouldn’t have let her keep her gun, would they? She was impaired, there were laws against that.

He should probably be concerned about that.

“Hurry up, you’re too slow,” she said, irate, and practically running toward his car.

Yeah, it could be a problem, but if she did have it, there was _no way_ he was going to remind her that she did. He had more self-preservation than that.

It was going to be a long night.

***

Her energy seemed to have leeched out of her. At first she’d hurriedly worked on her new gun, proclaiming her preeminence all the while, but then she just—stopped. Like a balloon deflating.

It was kinda eerie actually.

Now she was just resting her head on her kitchen table and not moving. Actually, she hadn’t moved in a while. He should probably go check on her. You never knew what they put in that shit.

“Calleigh, you all right?”

He walked over and peered over her shoulder when she didn’t respond. “Calleigh?” She was breathing and her eyes were open but she still didn’t answer.

He shook her a little and that, at least, got a response. “Leave me alone,” she mumbled, pushing his hand away.

“Hey, you worried me there. Anything wrong?”

She just looked at him blankly, not even lifting her head. “I’m tired.”

“I’ll bet. You should eat something, though,” he said going over to the fridge and looking inside. Such a chick, she was well-stocked with food that looked relatively new. He could probably find something with protein in it in here. Maybe eggs.

He could cook eggs.

“I’m not hungry.”

“Yeah, H said you’d say that, but you should eat anyway. I’ll make you some eggs.”

“No.”

“C’mon, Calleigh, work with me here.”

“No.” Yes, there was that familiar stubbornness. 

“How about I make you something to eat and then you can go to sleep?”

“I’m too tired to sleep.”

Ooookay. “Maybe you’ll feel differently when you get in bed. But first you should eat.”

“Not hungry,” she murmured again, still slumped over the table. Her back was going to kill her tomorrow. 

Hopefully she wouldn’t blame it on him.

He just shook his head and went about making eggs, impressed with all the cooking paraphernalia she’d collected. Girls always knew this stuff.

When he put the eggs down in front of her she just kind of stared at them blankly, like she was trying to figure out what they were. It probably didn’t help that she still had her head on the table.

Eric just grinned and pulled her to a sitting position, putting a fork in her hand and setting a huge glass of water in front of her.

Her eyes widened comically. “I can’t drink all that.”

“You were just crowing half an hour ago that you could do anything you wanted. I don’t think a glass of water will present much of a problem.”

She slumped back in the chair without answering and Eric managed to catch the fork right before it hit the ground. He sighed and resigned himself to his task. 

At least he’d have stories to tell, probably for _years_ to come. Calleigh was never going to live it down.

Heh.

***

After getting her to eat—not enough in his opinion—he half carried, half-dragged her to her bedroom. She was too tired to do much of anything apparently. 

Even sleep. Which was why he was _still awake_. At 2 a.m. And Calleigh was _still_ going on about how tired she was.

This night was never going to end. It was a never-ending night. He was going to age thirty years and it would still be night and he still wouldn’t have gotten Calleigh to go to bed. 

Or he might be tired.

He smirked at the confluence of Calleigh and bed, but pushed the thought away before his mind could go places it really shouldn’t. Not that it took that much these days. Not that it helped that Calleigh was sprawled boneless across her bed, blonde hair fanned out, staring sightlessly at the ceiling.

It was fascinating, apparently. 

He’d taken off her shoes and jacket, but had decided to stop there. No use tempting fate or anything.

“I’m tired.”

“Let me tell you, I know the feeling.”

“I’m tired.”

And _this_ was the problem. God, it was never going to end.

“You should try to sleep.”

“I never knew I could be this tired.” She was elongating all her words, making the whole situation just that much more surreal.

“It’s been a while since you drank water. You want me to get you more?”

“I’m tired.”

He sighed and looked up at the ceiling again. It was just—a ceiling. Nothing fancy—nice, white, but a ceiling nonetheless. What she was looking at, he couldn’t even guess.

Someone hated him. Really.

***

Amazingly, she eventually did drift off. Eric only noticed after the endless repetitions of ‘I’m tired.’ had stopped. He looked over to see her eyelids fluttering as she dreamed. 

Thank God. He watched her sleep for a while, ironically finding that now that she’d fallen asleep, he really couldn’t. He’d left one of the bedside lamps on low and it threw everything into shadows but the sleeping woman in the pool of light.

Just beautiful, his mind supplied.

He wondered if she knew. Wondered if she could go through life looking like _that_ and not know how she affected others. But at the same time, she did. All the carefully orchestrated outfits, the just-distracting-enough-to-throw-him cleavage she showed off. It was calculated, yes, so she knew how to get to others, bud did she really _understand_? 

Did she get that she was beautiful? He really couldn’t answer that. And it bothered him on some level that he couldn’t define because he was pretty sure she didn’t and he was pretty sure that that was bad. Only holding value for what it could do, and not for the thing in itself. That bothered him, too. 

But at the same time she’d spent so much time convincing everyone she was capable, he wondered if she even thought about how she looked other than as a tool, as a barrier to people taking her seriously, but something that could be exploited to her benefit.

It wouldn’t surprise him.

***

It did surprise him that _he_ slept. For a while, according to the muted light filtering in through the curtains. Calleigh was still asleep, in exactly the same position, sprawled out elegantly across the bed.

He sighed and got up, rubbing the crick out of his neck. It probably hadn’t been a good idea to sleep in a chair, but it wasn’t like he was going to be getting in bed with Calleigh. There was playing babysitter and there was crossing the line and Eric wanted to keep all of his body parts intact. He’d kind of gotten attached to them.

He walked out to the kitchen and called H while preparing to make more eggs, rumbling stomach telling him exactly how hungry _he_ was. He couldn’t imagine what Calleigh was feeling. As far as he knew, all she’d had yesterday was that granola bar and the few bites of eggs he’d managed to force down her throat.

After he’d checked in and confirmed that he wouldn’t be coming in until later, he made the eggs, toast, and coffee for himself. Oh, how he needed coffee. His college days were long gone and he could feel nights like these, too much worrying and too little sleep.

Man, he was getting _old_.

He almost dropped his mug when he turned around and there was Calleigh, startling him but at the same time looking mussed and tired and utterly fuckable.

Uh, yeah. That was probably something he shouldn’t be thinking, not that he could help himself while Calleigh was yawning and rubbing her eyes like she could use a few more hours herself. Or someone to tuck her in.

Okay, so he was a guy. He was not immune to these things.

“‘Morning,” he said, recovering a grin. “I made food.”

She looked at the eggs like she hadn’t eaten in days and unceremoniously dropped into a chair, eating everything he put in front of her. Making up for what she hadn’t eaten the day before and _good_. That made him feel better. He didn’t need to be worrying about her health when even their relationship was held in such a tenuous balance.

Not that eating a few eggs and some toast would stop him, of course.

When her frantic pace finally slowed and she seemed full, he washed the dishes and put them away, only to find Calleigh _looking_ at him.

“What?” he asked, looking down at himself. Yeah, he was wrinkled, but so was she. He didn’t think she’d hold it against him.

“Thanks,” she said softly, ruefully.

He grinned and nodded. “It was my pleasure. It’s not every day I get to be in the presence of genius.” Which wasn’t exactly true, but he wanted to keep this light.

“Oh.” She winced and covered her eyes. “Yeah, I said that, didn’t I?” she asked, looking sheepishly back up at him.

“You were pretty adamant about it, yeah. I’d heard cocaine made you narcissistic, but man. That was pretty impressive. What were you working on anyway?”

She frowned, thinking. “I don’t really know. It all seemed clear at the time. Where’d you put those papers?”

He brought them over to her, grinning as she got even more confused as she rustled through them. “None of this makes any sense,” she said to no one in particular, picking through one paper after another. She stopped suddenly, straightening. “I was insane.”

He laughed at that, sitting down at the table and stretching in his chair, loosening tired, sore muscles that were loudly protesting having slept in a chair.

Caught her giving him that speculative look again. Interesting.

“It was cute, though. Not like you, but cute.”

“It was horrible. I couldn’t concentrate on anything. And then I was so tired I just wanted to die.”

“Oh, you’re not the only one. If I ever hear ‘I’m tired’ again, it will be too soon.”

She frowned again, looking like she was trying to figure out what to say to that.

He raised a hand, stopping the apology he knew was coming. “Don’t say you’re sorry. I knew what I signed on for.” Well, not really, but it sounded good.

She nodded thoughtfully, staying quiet.

“Besides, now I have more stories to tell,” he said with a wicked grin.

“Oh, don’t you dare—”

“‘God! I’m brilliant!’” he mimicked, grinning broadly. “You have to admit, Calleigh, it was funny.”

“Not when you’re living it. How can people stand to be so out of control?” she asked, looking truly baffled. But not just that, she looked a little frightened by it. It made sense—Calleigh was all about control. He put a reassuring hand on hers and squeezed, bringing her back to him.

He shrugged. “Maybe they think they’re in control of it. You certainly did.”

“Yeah, and look how that turned out.”

He nodded his head, conceding the point, trying not to freak out over the fact that yes, he was still holding her hand and no, she wasn’t pulling away from him like she normally would.

“Have you talked to Horatio?” she asked suddenly, pointedly not looking at the table.

“Yeah, I called him this morning. He said to tell you that you should take the day.”

And that got her attention. She pulled her hand back and visibly stiffened. “I can do my job, Eric.”

“No one says any different,” he said, trying to mollify but know by the set of her jaw that it wasn’t working. “But yesterday is not something to wave away. We don’t know how much cocaine you absorbed and considering the circumstances, I’m surprised he’s not making you take more. The day is a gift, Calleigh.”

She just sighed and nodded, pulling her hair back from her face and settling back into the chair.

He accepted her acceptance of that and glanced at the clock.

“Anyway, I should go. I’ve got to get out of these clothes,” he said with a grin, plucking at his shirt distastefully. 

“I hear you.” She smiled back. “Thanks, Eric.”

“Anytime. I love adding embarrassing anecdotes to my collection.”

She smacked him on the way out and he laughed.

That was more like it.

***

Fin. Feedback is adored.


End file.
